Communication Gaffes: A Root Cause of Malpractice Claims‪.‬

We are presently in the throes of another medical malpractice insurance crisis, not unlike the crisis that occurred in the late 1970s. The availability of medical malpractice insurance is diminishing; insurance premiums are skyrocketing; insurance carriers are going bankrupt or refusing to write insurance policies in Texas. In some areas, the cost of malpractice insurance is prohibitive, causing physicians to leave medicine. The most concerning fallout is that patient access to care is being compromised. It is easy to blame insurance companies, plaintiff lawyers, and runaway juries for our woes. It is harder to examine our own practices and ask ourselves what we could do to change patients' feelings that they need to sue doctors, hospitals, and nurses. In this age of phenomenal technological innovations and highly successful treatments and cures, why is it that our customers, the patients, are dissatisfied with their health care to such a degree that they feel compelled to file a lawsuit?